One of the pioneering oracle bones scholars, Chen hanged himself during the Cultural Revolution. His book on ancient Chinese bronze heads in foreign hands, later given the title Our Country's Shang and Zhou Bronzes Looted by American Imperialists, is recognized by scholars as supremely authoritative. During the brief Hundred Flowers period in 1957, Chen was prominent in voicing opposition to the simplification of the traditional Chinese characters, for which he was shortly afterwards sent to a labor camp.
The account of the movement for simplifying Chinese characters, or possibly replacing them altogether, is one of the book's set pieces. In his early days of power, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) favored a Western-style alphabet, and one had actually been in use among Communist cadres in the 1940s. Mao eventually opted for simplification after Stalin advised him in 1949 that a great country like China should have its own form of writing rather than mimic someone else's. Thus the oldest writing system still in use anywhere in the world survives in China, albeit in attenuated form.
Almost all educated Chinese people secretly agreed with Chen in opposing the changes. To them, writes Hessler, using simplified characters was - and is - "like walking thru the Kwik-mart 2 by sumthing."
Hessler hasn't lost his old enthusiasm for teaching either - much of this book is a deliberate exercise in expanding his readers' sympathies. He introduces Chinese words, for instance, first in romanized form, then as characters, so that after reading all 491 pages you've become familiar with not an insignificant amount of simple Chinese.
I felt sad after finishing Oracle Bones. It's a rich and varied book, but part of it is a tribute to the educated elites who suffered so much after 1949. Time will change everything, Hessler concludes, but China's suffering was real for millions of individuals, as was the extraordinary resilience of those who endured.
Peter Hessler began his life in China teaching students about the US. Now he's engaged in teaching Americans - and happily many of the rest of us too - about what it's like living in a country he sees as, in characteristic mind-set at least, similar to the US. I suspect that one day this hugely engrossing book will be regarded as a classic, and I can't recommend it too highly.
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